


As days go by, the night's on fire

by PunkyNemo (TheVampireCat)



Series: Ballads for a dead man [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Agony, Angst, F/M, Fireworks, This is the sequel to You're a ghost town (and maybe I'm a ghost), Unresolved Sexual Tension, author regrets everything, i'm sorry okay?, too much of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7502214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVampireCat/pseuds/PunkyNemo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's lost him, she's found him and she's lost him again. And now he's standing on her fire escape, holding out his hand and looking at her like she's the only thing on Earth worth seeing.</p><p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7086793"><i>You're a ghost town (and maybe I'm a ghost)</i></a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As days go by, the night's on fire

**Author's Note:**

> Since I wrote _[You're a ghost town (and maybe I'm a ghost)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7086793)_ , I had wanted to write more Kastle fic but I also really liked the idea of _YAGT_ being a one shot and I didn't really want to write a sequel. I kind of liked the idea of the credits rolling on a picture of Karen and Frank huddled up together in a dark cabin at the end of the world. Truth is, I still do.
> 
> However, a funny thing happened on the way to ~~the forum~~ work one morning (which is when I do the majority of my writing - whoever thought the London Underground was a creative space?) and I realised that even as I was writing this fic I was tying it back to _YAGT_ in very specific ways and it really seemed like this was a natural progression. And then the worst thing happened and I realised that I had started thinking far far ahead in this world and that this was about to turn into a full on multi-chaptered nightmare. I'm serious, I have about 75 to 80% of it mapped out already. I'm pretty sure I know where it's going to go and how it is going to end. This is me, so things could change somewhat but I like my plan so much that I don't think any changes will significantly alter the structure I have in my head. Yes, that means there will be more coming and no, this is not the end.
> 
> Regardless I now had a problem. I wanted to continue this story but I also wanted _YAGT_ to be able to stand as a one shot, which I think it does. I also tend to write in "chunks" meaning that when I write chaptered things my chapters tend to cover a specific incident. I wouldn't quite say my chapters function as one shots because you kind of _have_ to read everything for things to make sense but for the most part they are fairly self contained. 
> 
> Hence I have decided to use AO3's series function for the first time. I know it's mainly a cosmetic thing but it makes me feel better (at least in my mind) to let _YAGT_ function alone and then go "but if you wanted to know what happened next, then I can help you with that". Hence this series, now called _Ballads for a dead man_ exists (for better or worse).
> 
> I am not sure how many chapters it will be. It's likely I might break up longer parts into chapters within the series but I'll see when i get there. As I said on tumblr the other day, even when I have a plan things do tend to go on a tangent sometimes and I don't think that is a bad thing. If they didn't, you wouldn't have gotten this story, so I have learned to trust my gut on these things.
> 
> So hey, new Kastle fic, how about that?
> 
> Title is from "Hurricane" by 30 Seconds to Mars. I guess the title of the series gives away that song titles will be a theme in this.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

He disappears again. It's not like she thought he'd stick around. Take her on dates. Romance her. You don't get to do that when you're the Punisher. It's right at the top on the list of Things That Don't Happen.  


It hurts like a bitch though. She knows it shouldn't. She knows intellectually that these fantasies she has about him and her and happily ever afters are just that. Fantasies. She knew, even when he mumbled his way through that thing that half resembled a confession, that inevitably it did not matter. It couldn't.

But now, oh god _now_ , it feels like it does, feels like it _should_. 

She tries not to think on it too much. Tries to honour her promise not to dissect it and analyse it. Tries to tell herself that they were alone and afraid, veins pumping adrenalin and that those three little words “don't you know?” could have meant anything. Anything at all, and it’s pure vanity to imagine they mean what she thinks they do.

She has yet to come up with a feasible alternative though.

And it's not like she hasn't been trying.

So that's where she is. Exactly where she promised herself she wouldn’t be. Overthinking.  Dissecting. Analysing. And, more than anything, missing him in whatever capacity he might decide to present himself to her. And that's fucking ridiculous because she doesn't even really know what that is or what she would prefer. If she even gets a say in her preference.

The thing about all this, the thing that makes it so complicated is they left it to fester, they never confronted it head on. They never spoke about it, partly because she didn't think there was all that much to say but mostly because she didn't have the words. Because she didn’t know how to answer him. Didn’t know how to do anything other than lie there warm in his arms and eventually let sleep take her, the sound of his heartbeat thrumming through her veins.

In her darker moments she derides herself as a writer, as someone whose livelihood is words and phrases, sentences that make people feel things and bring ideas home to roost. Make them laugh and cry and give meaning to meaningless things. It seems an impossibly lofty goal for a woman who literally could not find the words to answer the easiest of questions.

_Don’t you know?_

And fair enough, she asks herself that same question now every day. _Don’t you Karen? Don’t you?_

Yes she does, and no she doesn’t. And she doesn’t think there’s enough space between those two binaries for anything else.

And there hadn’t been when she’d had the chance. When they’d had the hours to kill between the time she woke up and he’d driven her home. Those hours they lost talking about trivial things, looking for levity and finding a close approximation of it. Those hours lost watching the LED clock ticking down in his truck as he grudgingly drove back to the city, the time she spent telling herself that she just needed five more minutes - just _five_ \- and she'd find the right thing to say, the words would come. They always do. And they have to. They just have to. Don’t force it. Don’t reach for it. Just let it slip out. It’ll happen. It’ll come. 

She had turned to him as he drew to a stop outside outside her apartment, studying his profile in the half light, the dark sky and falling snow a callous and stark backdrop for words that were meant to soothe. Words she didn’t know yet. There was a beauty to him. A cruel beauty but beauty nonetheless. Something he would have laughed at if she had said it to him. That sharp dry sound he makes before looking away and shaking his head as if the whole world has gone crazy and it’s just him holding onto a scrap of sanity. He would have told her she's nuts. He would have been right. But that doesn't make it less true. He was beautiful, his tight jaw, white knuckles, the veins pumping in his forearms as he gripped the steering wheel so hard she wondered if it's possible to dent it. And he was grinding his teeth with such force that she leant across the space between them to touch his arm to whisper it was okay, to tell him she had something to say, that he needed to hear it. To see surprise flare in his eyes. Surprise and fear and something else that she could only describe as hope.

And then she saw his gaze flicker to the street outside and she turned to see Matt and Foggy flying out of her apartment block towards the truck, Foggy blinking at Frank as if he was seeing a ghost even though he had to know what happened and Matt giving up any pretence of being remotely disabled by his blindness as he threw the door open and half dragged her out of the seat and into his arms. 

If it had been a movie, a cheesy romance based on petty jealousies and ridiculous misunderstandings, she would have said that was the moment things went wrong. When Matt’s hands were on her face and her neck, in her hair, as he pulled her into a hug that left her bruised ribs aching and her chest like it was about to explode. When he whispered in her ear about how worried he was, how _sorry_ he was. How he didn't want to be without her. And many other things that only a few months before she have been thrilled to hear.

But it wasn't a movie. And it didn't go wrong there. It went wrong years before. It went wrong before she could have even known there was something to go wrong. It went wrong when a sting operation fucked itself up the ass and left one man with a hole in his head and another in his heart.

Still, when she thinks back now she doesn’t remember it all chronologically. Little snatches come to her and along with them shivers of shame even though she knows there was nothing she could have done. Matt. Foggy. Luna suddenly bouncing out of the backseat and barking loud and excited in her ear. The way it had started to snow again and the air seemed simultaneously light and heavy. A homeless man crouched in a shop entrance and Foggy glancing awkwardly between her and Frank with a look that told her immediately that he wasn’t going to buy any story she told him unless it was the truth.

The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.

Foggy was always the better lawyer after all.

And then Frank. Frank silent and stoic at the wheel, that white-knuckled grip only getting whiter and the grinding of his teeth almost audible over whatever it was that Matt might have been saying. She doesn’t remember most of it and part of her thinks that is a blessing. Or maybe not. Because Frank heard. And while she’s neither conceited nor stupid enough to even entertain the thought that anything he felt in those moments was even a shadow of jealousy, the thing she remembers the most clearly of all was the expression of quiet acceptance on his face as she watched him over Matt’s shoulder. No rage, no fire. Like he’d delivered her to where she belonged and everything was as it should be.

And when she finally pulled free, he was already putting the truck into reverse and checking his mirrors for oncoming traffic.

“Frank, I…” she began.

And the look on his face was unreadable when he met her eyes.

“It’s alright,” he said and she wanted to scream that it wasn’t, that she had something to say, to tell him and that it was important. If he could just wait. If he could just listen.

No.

He couldn’t.

She saw him sigh. A brief hitch of his shoulders that would have gone unnoticed by someone who hadn’t spent the night in his arms, by someone who didn’t know him. It was defeat. It was acceptance. It was a bunch of other things she couldn’t name and maybe didn't want to.

He nodded at Foggy and then glanced back at her, eyes black and hard.

“You take care now ma’am.”

 _Ma’am_. A knife in her back may have been less painful.

And then he was gone. And, in that moment, her world became a little greyer and a little smaller, the air poisoned and harder to breathe.

So help her God indeed.

***

And now? Well now it's five months later, Hell’s Kitchen is well into a rainy, blustery spring and Frank Castle is standing outside her window, on her wet and slippery fire escape holding out his hand. And she doesn't know whether to take it or push him the hell off.

It could go either way. Really it could.

It’s not that she thought she’d never see him again. She’s been around long enough to know that people like Frank don’t just vacate your life with a quiet sigh, never to turn up again. They go out with a bang. Go big _and_ go home. And he’s done neither. Not yet at least. So the idea that somehow she was done with Frank Castle and him with her seems not only ludicrous but wrong in a very visceral sense. 

(In any case, he’s had subtle ways of showing her he’s alive. A 9mm cartridge left on her windowsill, her morning coffee already paid for by “a man in a skull shirt”, Earth, Wind and Fire blaring forth from her radio when she starts her car. He lets her know he’s around, even though he isn’t.)

She guesses, however, she just didn’t expect it to be like this. Inasmuch as she expected anything, gunfire and bullets and screaming were nearer the top of the list of Ways In Which Frank Castle Might Show Up Again than this apparent late night social call aka I Just Stopped Round To Say Hi aka Hello, Is It Me You’re Looking For?

(She’s not quite sure where the last one came from.)

Still, seeing him in the flesh, solid and tangible and wonderfully alive makes her do a double take, fight down the urge to pinch herself and only half hope she won’t wake up. Because yeah, it still hurts. It hurts like a fucking bitch. And his sudden presence, social call or otherwise, does nothing to quell that. If anything, it intensifies the goddamn void that she’s carried alongside her for months now, the one she’s been fighting so hard not to pitch herself into. She found him and then she lost him and she wonders how many more times she’s destined to revisit that cycle.

“Ma’am?”

And yeah _that_. _That_ is still so fucking complicated.

She looks up at him, meets his gaze. It’s hard and he’s frowning but then again, he’s always frowning. If anything, he seems even better than the last time she saw him. Despite the fact he's mostly shadow against the hazy city lights and he's wearing a long black coat that transforms him from just another badass pissed off motherfucker into some kind of emo superhero, - an undead Eric Draven living it up on Devil’s Night - he's standing tall and strong. 

His proffered hand has blood on it though. So, there's that.

She regards him for a good few seconds, his tight jaw, eyes black and blown but still looking at her like she is literally the only thing on God’s green earth that matters and she wishes this didn't feel as much like a disaster as it does. Frank Castle out of hiding. Frank Castle returning from the void. Frank Castle no doubt here to finish the work of breaking her heart that he started months ago and has steadily continued to do by proxy ever since. Because he has. She hates to admit it but he has. Every free latte, every chord of _Shining Star_ , every day that he’s been gone, every hour that she’s found herself wondering where he is, if he’s safe, if he’s hurt, if he’s finally doing that something that he can’t come back from, has chipped away at her, has curled into her chest and poisoned her slowly from the inside.

And after all this, she shouldn’t be happy to see him. She _shouldn’t_ , but she is. And that’s the ultimate betrayal.

And suddenly the idea of pushing him off the landing doesn’t seem even slightly too harsh a solution to the current problem. It's only seven floors. And he is, after all, a tough son of a bitch. She doubts he would even bruise.

“Something wrong with my front door Frank?” she asks and it comes out mangled and not anywhere near as nonchalant as she’d hoped.

He shrugs. “Didn't want your security to break a hip.”

She glares at him. Security - and she does believe that her block’s supervisor is using that term in the loosest sense - is Howard. And he’s old and he's sweet, even if she thinks that in the event of an actual emergency he'd probably end up hiding behind her. But he calls her “miss” and he tells her to only date gentlemen who open doors for her and on Thursdays his wife bakes a mean carrot cake and he always brings an extra slice.

“Sorry,” he glances away briefly and then back at her, outstretched arm wavering ever so slightly, hint of worry in his eyes that maybe he’s miscalculated, that she might shut the window in his face and leave him outside in the gloom. And she might. She just might. 

Because there is every reason _not_ to take his hand. In fact the list of Reasons Not To Take Frank Castle’s Bloodied Paws, which only sprang into her head a few seconds ago is probably the most densely populated tally she has right now. 

(Well other than the one called Reasons Karen Page Should Push The Punisher Off The Fire Escape, but she guesses she’s already decided she’s not going there.)

Problem is she wants to take his hand. She wants to feel that he’s really here, that this isn’t some tragic fantasy come to life and she’s hallucinating or dreaming or any other nonsensical thing that could account for his presence on her stairwell. She wants to touch him, feel his skin, leech his warmth from him like she did when she was cold and frightened and he held her as if she was the only thing in the world worth hanging on to.

She wants to. So she does. She stops analysing and reaches out into the night and slides her fingers into his, feels the blood - his or someone else’s, she doesn’t know - smear along her skin, up her wrist as his hand closes around her. And his grip is how she remembered. Strong and warm and tight and she wonders if it’s the same for him. If he also needs to be sure she’s real and that there’s still something left for him to hold on to in this world gone crazy. Or maybe it’s just because it’s her and because she means something to him. She lets herself believe that and doesn’t bother scolding herself for this conceit.

She has, of course, yet to figure out another meaning of “don’t you know”. And right now, she’ll let herself entertain the most obvious one.

“Come to the roof?” he asks.

“What’s on the roof Frank?”

“Nothing,” he looks away again, sheepish. “Me.”

“Quite the offer,” she says and there’s only the smallest hint of dryness in her tone. But it’s also enough to make him smirk, mouth twisting up on the one side.

He’s a mass murderer. He’s a good man. There is no contradiction in these statements.

“Come on,” he says and she pushes her window further open and lets him pull her up onto the stairs and into the night, cold April winds spiralling around her legs and whipping at the hem of her dress. And he steadies her by grabbing onto her elbow, letting her grip his arm. He smells faintly of blood and sweat which is no real surprise. But under that there’s something else. Smoke, earth, petrichor. Something that smells pure and clean even though he shouldn’t.

For a second it's intoxicating. Heady. His smell, his touch. It feels like she's back at the cabin, cold and naked and watching the back of his head, wishing he'd do away with gentlemanly formalities and take her. Bend her over that fucking table so she smells sawdust and feels splinters in her skin, while he slides a hand between her thighs.

And it's so fucking wrong and so fucking messed up and she tries _so_ hard not to go there. Tries so hard to hold on to what it was and let go of what it could have been. Because it was everything. It was more than everything. 

But he's Frank and she's human. What ifs are just another Tuesday.

She takes a breath. Cold and wet and the air tastes of rain and blood. Clean like ozone and poisoned at the same time. In the dim light, little more than a glow really, she can see his pulse jumping in his throat, thinks of how she put her mouth there, how she tasted him, how she wants to do it again, this time on the hard lines of his collarbones jutting up just above the neckline of his shirt. 

And yes, the shirt. Black and worn with a white skull on it. Not like she expected anything else. Not like it matters either way. He is what he is with or without the skull.

He takes a small step back but doesn't let go of her. “Were you going somewhere?”

For a second she has no idea what he means. But then she sees how he's looking at her in that way that should be lewd but somehow isn’t.

She glances down at her dress. It's short and flared, made of silk the colour of the ocean, and it ducks low on her chest, matching high-heeled Mary Janes on her feet, silver charm bracelet on her wrist. She guesses she isn’t really dressed for hanging out on roofs with wanted criminals. Guesses there isn’t a rulebook for that kind of thing further than “don’t do it” and “don’t you fucking dare do it” and “look what you’ve gone and fucking done now”.

She clears her throat, but her voice still comes out rough. “I went to a thing with Foggy. Cocktail party for one of his clients. He needed a date and I needed an invitation.”

“Needed?” He cocks his head. “For the paper?”

She nods. She’ll tell him about it even though the part of her that’s not feeling weak in the knees is still debating whether a seven-storey fall could damage him irreparably. She thinks it’ll be something that interests him. But maybe not at this exact moment in time, maybe not when his hands are gripping her as tightly as they are and she’s close enough to feel the heat emanating off him like he’s some kind of human furnace. 

This is a disaster. She doesn’t care.

She sees him glance down at the city, the hustle and bustle of the streets. Police cruisers and pedestrians, shops only just closing up for the night.

“Not much of a party,” he says. “You leave early?”

“Yeah.” 

“Why?” he asks.

She cocks her head, purses her lips. She could tell him that Matt arrived, that Elektra was on his arm. That she didn’t want to put Foggy in that awkward position he’s been both dreading and predicting since the day Nelson and Murdock closed its doors. That she still hasn’t told any of them what happened that night at the cabin and that he, The Punisher, hangs between the three of them like a bad memory, a taboo that only she gets to cry over. 

She could tell him any one of these things. They’d all be true. He’d accept them even. But she doesn’t. Because he’s here and she doesn’t want to think about all the reasons he shouldn’t be.

She grins, throws some mirth into her voice. “I had a date on the roof Frank.”

He snorts, look away again, mouth twisting into a half-smile. She's come to realise that this is how he deflects embarrassment. That on some level The Punisher is the tiniest bit shy. And that’s something she files away on the list of Things Frank Castle Is. So far she has Insane, Dog Lover, Lost, Coffee Addict and now Shy. Bad Singer too, although that feels a bit clumsy and she's looking for something better.

It’s not a perfect list, but it’s a work in progress. She has no doubt she’ll add more.

He turns back to her, says something, but the wind snatches it and she leans in to hear him, his mouth almost close enough to brush her ear as he speaks.

****

“I said that’s a pretty dress ma’am.”

She closes her eyes. He’s tough and he’s mean and he’s difficult and there are times she wishes she’d never met him, that her and Matt had never walked into that hospital room and let go of each other’s hands in front of Frank’s bed. But he’s also sweet. And he's also kind. Deep down, once you’ve drilled through The Punisher (both literally and figuratively she's willing to bet), dug through the soldier, comforted the bewildered lost boy, there’s just a man. A man who was a husband and a lover. A friend. A partner. And that man is good and kind and sweet. He’s funny and caring. 

And oh God, they’re going to need to talk about this. They’re going to need to talk about so damn much. 

Not now. But soon. Very soon.

“Come on,” she pulls away slightly, climbs onto the step above him so that she’s level with him. “I want to see what's on the roof.”

“Told you, ain't nothing on the roof.”

She shakes her head and the wind lifts her hair. “You're on the roof”

He snorts. It's a dry noise and sounds faintly exasperated but he follows her, a huge menacing presence at her back that’s not menacing at all. And maybe she's stupid and maybe she's naive or maybe she's the only person in the whole world who has any hope in hell of understanding Frank Castle. Right now she’s hedging her bets on the last one. Right now she doesn’t have it in her to consider the other possibilities.

They walk in silence, the stairs twisting and bending and she feels him shift behind her and then the weight of his hand on her back, heavy and warm as his fingers twitch against the silk of her dress. And she can't help it but she arches against him, leans into his hand before she can stop herself. He sucks in a breath behind her so loud it's almost a groan and she forces herself not to read meaning into that, concentrates hard on not slipping on the wet steps. One foot in front of the other, heels chiming against the metal, echoing into the night.

She wonders what he’d do if she fell, if he’d be ready to catch her or if he’d do what he did before. Cushion her, hide her, take the pain for her.

She guesses it’s not much of a question. She guesses he’s answered it enough already.

The wind is stronger the higher they get and as they near the top of the building, it flips her hair and funnels under her dress, blows icy pinpricks of rain that’s more like saturated mist against her skin. She should have gone back inside to get her coat. She _should_ have. Not even Frank Castle tapping on your window like a dark messenger out of a Poe composition is a good enough excuse for that level of stupidity. But she didn't. He’s kept her warm once and she takes it on faith that he’ll do it again.

As he promised there is nothing on the roof. She stands at the edge and all she sees is a few weak lights, some discarded beer bottles and candy wrappers, tattered newspapers and the concrete block of the maintenance room bang in the middle like some kind of industrial shrine to boilers and mops. 

It's bleak and dismal and then she turns around and sees the hazy city lights, the silver grey snake that is the Hudson, the deep shadows of the docks and the lighter ones of the Kitchen and all of a sudden it’s something else entirely. Something hopeful, something brimming with an untapped potential. Something that isn’t good but can be. 

She glances up at Frank and she knows he sees it too.

It means something even if it doesn't. 

His fingers spasm again and his hand moves slightly so that it’s nearly resting on her hip, a single warm shield on her chilled skin. She thinks of how he covered her belly with his palm, how he pressed on her bruise and it didn’t hurt and then Matt touched it and it did. She thinks of how his breath felt on her neck, her cheek, the imprint of his lips on her temple, her shoulder, how sometimes at night, when she just feels lonely and drained, she’ll put her fingers to both these places and she can almost feel his stubble scraping across her skin. She wonders if it’s the same for him. If he thinks about her. If he remembers what she told him about Wesley or if it’s filed away on his list of Scumbags Frank Castle Does Not Need To Kill. If he remembers her lips on his pulse. The kiss that wasn’t a kiss but was a promise. 

She still wants to push him off the roof though. She still tells herself that at least.

And then his fingers do settle on her hip, blunt nails pressing into her. She takes a breath, deep and ragged, and turns to him not really intending to do anything other than see his face when a sudden gust of wind screeches through the air, lifting her dress so high that she’s sure he must see the lacy tops of her stockings, the tiny satin bows on her thighs. 

She curses, grabs at the fabric, more exasperated than embarrassed really. No, he was no excuse. No excuse at all. She should have left him there at the window or invited him inside or done any number of things to ensure that she stayed one step ahead of the hypothermia that seems dead intent on trying to murder her every time she’s around him. 

And then she laughs. It's not dry. It's not even remotely hard or derisive. It's genuine and heartfelt and it takes a few seconds before she realises he's joined in, not loud like hers but his shoulders are shaking and the look on his face is bemused and wry and for a moment she considers telling him that it's terribly unfair that he's the only one getting an eyeful all the time. But she doesn't. They're just legs and it’s not like Frank Castle has never seen legs. Or stockings. Or underwear. Not like anything she’s got is going to come as a big surprise. And just the fact that she’s thinking like this makes her want to slap herself. Imagining it all as if it is a done deal and they’re on an inevitable collision course that will finally end in her bedroom. 

He said “Don’t you know?” and she tells herself it could mean anything. Anything. She even has a list of Things Don’t You Know Could Mean. Currently it only has one item on it. She’s been trying to add more. Her success has been negligible.

“Here,” his coat is off and he’s draping it around her shoulders, tugging it closed at her throat, knuckles brushing against her collarbones. Lingering just a little too long and then snapping away like she's burned him.

And maybe she did. Maybe that's what they do to each other now. It's okay. She can think of worse things. 

She glances down. The coat hangs to her ankles and she would swear it’s big enough to fit both of them. Even so she can feel the hard outlines of guns and knives in its pockets. His armory, his arsenal, strapped to him and kept close like his rage. His violence. It smells of him too. Blood. Tears. Badness. And still, underneath it all, that strange purity. That thing that is clean and all good. The husband. The lover. The father. Now all wrapped up in a disguise of vengeance and pain.

He's a monster but he's not only a monster. He's a hero but he's not only a hero.

“Come,” he leads her away from the edge, out of the wind to the relative shelter behind the maintenance room. There's a narrow ledge on the outer wall, wide enough for them to half sit, half lean and she burrows further into his coat. Like him, it might be filled with death but it’s warm. She guesses that’s no real surprise.

He stays close but he doesn’t touch her, hands clasped loosely in his lap, head tilted back against the wall. She sees now that there’s a small gash on his neck, some crusted blood, the dark shadow of a bruise under his chin. He’s been fighting. Killing. Punishing. Out there in this shitty little corner of New York in the shitty little corner of the world there’s someone whose entire existence has been snuffed out tonight because once upon a time a sting operation went wrong. Because one man has too much rage for the whole world. 

She wonders where it will end. Because it has to. Because it must. 

He’s beautiful. But he’s also a tipped scale. An imbalance. He’s _wrong_. And she’s been around long enough to know that the universe has ways of righting itself. Of forcing the world back on track, even if it’s down a path no one wants to go.

But not tonight. Tonight he’s here and she’s here and she’s not going to push him off the roof. Tonight, the sky is dark and the wind is cold but the clouds are clearing and she can even see some stars twinkling down on them. Tonight he held her hands and he touched her and while this is still a disaster and she still hates the same parts of him that she loves, she lets herself believe it’ll be okay. If only for a moment. However long it might choose to last.

“I’ll bring a picnic next time,” he hasn’t moved, his eyes are more than half closed though and it takes her a good few seconds to parse his words. To realise he's teasing her.

She feels her mouth twisting up on one side.

“God Frank, did you just make a joke?” She goes for mock surprise, but there’s a part of her that’s genuinely shocked.

He smiles and she swears there’s a hint of smugness in it. 

He might be melancholy but somehow he's also okay. And she gets the distinct feeling that he's trying. Trying to do what she's not really sure. But trying nonetheless.

And if he can, so can she. She glances at the beer bottles and candy wrappers.

“We’ll need to clean up here first, otherwise we might get ants.”

“Fuck the ants.” 

“You can't shoot the ants Frank. You know that, right?”

He snorts. “I'll take that under advisement ma'am.”

She chuckles, follows his gaze up to the night sky. 

“They were going to have fireworks,” she says softly and he opens his eyes, turns to look at her questioningly.

“The party,” she stuffs her hands into his pockets to stop fidgeting. “it was some rich investor, a client of Foggy’s new firm, with literal money to burn, buying up the last remaining Fisk properties. Went all out. Five-star catering, dancing, even had acrobats. Said if the sky cleared there'd be a fireworks display.”

“Cocksucker,” he says.

She nods. He’s not wrong. A rich Russian cocksucker with promises that sounded exactly like Fisk’s own from a year ago. And like Fisk there was nothing on him. Squeaky fucking clean with a gentle nature and a sparkling smile to match. 

The more things change the more they stay the same. 

He says he's going to spruce the place up, create jobs, bring tourism into the neighbourhood. Promises as empty as his smile.

She doesn’t believe one word of it but unfortunately the _New York Bulletin_ has a policy against running stories that amount to “Karen Page has a bad feeling about Hell’s Kitchen’s latest white knight” standfirst “but she’s totally chill about the vigilante problem”. So instead she's looked. She's looked hard. And even Ellison, usually happy to trust her instincts, has encouraged her to think a bit more positively about it. In fact his exact words were “how come you can give The Punisher the benefit of the doubt after everything he's done, but the minute someone actually does something good, you question it?”

She guesses he's right. But then he's not standing on the roof with The Punisher knowing that he'd literally die to protect her. Or because she asked. Whichever comes first.

Because he said “don't you know” and she knows exactly what he meant.

Yeah maybe her judgement isn't as sound as she likes to imagine.

“Asshole is going to have every damn dog in New York thinking it’s gonna die,” he’s muttering next to her. “They don’t fucking understand.”

She’s mildly amused that she’s telling Frank about a potential Wilson Fisk version 2.0 and he’s worried about some as of yet unrealised fireworks scaring dogs. But then again dogs are probably the only thing in the world that he loves more than killing scumbags, so maybe it’s not that strange. After all, the last time she saw him he risked his life for a junkyard dog. A sappy, silly, ridiculous version of a junkyard dog, but a junkyard dog all the same.

“Do you still have Luna?” she asks and he hesitates a moment before nodding his head. She knows why. Luna is tied to that night. Luna lying asleep on a small couch while she undressed and imagined him bending her over that rude table, while they sat on the floor holding each other and touching each other and sharing their secrets. Luna, silent in the backseat as they drove back to New York and everything went back to how it was before.

“I’m going to take her to New Jersey,” he says and there’s a hitch in his voice. “I know a woman who owns some land, runs a sanctuary. She owes me a favour.”

Sure, a favour. Karen doesn’t ask. She doesn’t need to.

“I took her to the vet,” and again it’s one of those things about Frank that makes sense but doesn’t. The fact that he spends his time on a rampage against all that is dark and evil and bad in this world. That he needs this rage he keeps inside him to fuel every last thing he does. And somehow he also takes his dog to the vet like every responsible pet owner should do. She’d say that one of these things is not like the others but it is. It really fucking is.

“What did the vet say?”

He takes a deep breath and she realises this is hard for him. “The good news is she isn’t as old as we thought. She’s only about ten or eleven. But the assholes who had her didn’t treat her well, didn’t feed her. She’s rundown and she’s not as healthy as she should be. Probably had too many puppies as well.”

None of this is really a surprise and she feels a flash of guilt that before everything went to shit that night she'd decided not to go and help the dog. She knows her reasons. They were good enough at the time. But they don't feel good enough now.

“So now what?” she asks and he looks at her sharply and she wonders why. Wonders where this fearfulness of her judgments comes from. It's like he doesn't trust her to trust him to do the right thing. It’s the same look he gave her back in the cabin, the same one where she felt she was being scanned for artifice and trickery. 

_Don’t you know?_

“We have another appointment in a few weeks, they need to check her for a couple things and then I’m going to take her up to the sanctuary,” he pauses. “I can’t… with that I do… it’s a risk you know?”

She knows. He doesn’t need to explain. One day he might not come home and what’s left for Luna then? A slow death from starvation all alone? 

She reaches for his hand, covers his fingers with her own and for a second he does nothing. He’s quiet and contemplative and she thinks he’ll just leave it at that, keep to himself and his thoughts of his dog and everything else he’s lost and is going to lose too. But then his hand turns under hers and he grasps her tightly, thick fingers sliding through hers and bending to rest on her knuckles. 

“Luna’s a good dog,” he says softly and she smiles and rubs her thumb along the hard ridges of scar tissue on the back of his fist. “Gonna be sad to see her go.”

And he just sounds so damn dejected. So resigned and maudlin that she shifts closer and leans against him, rests her cheek against his shoulder and she’s not surprised when he lets go of her hand to slide his arm around her shoulders, tug her a little closer and touch his lips to her hairline, breathe her in. She gets it. It’s something else he’s going to lose. Something else that’s going to be ripped away because of who and what he is. And yes, it’s his choice. He’d be mortified to hear anyone call it anything else, but it doesn’t make the consequences hurt less.

He’s alone. He’s always alone.

She adds that to the list. Insane. Dog Lover, Lost, Coffee Addict, Shy, Bad Singer, Alone. 

Good. Even when he’s not.

Good, even when she wants to push him off the roof.

And she doesn’t want to. Not anymore. She wants to sit here with him, and watch the sky, feel the wind blowing at his coat and not get inside, his arm around her shoulders, hard and strong and that bloody, earthy smell of him. It doesn’t matter that he’s been mostly absent. She gets it. Even if it hurts. She’s always known that this - whatever it may be - is not going to be easy. And that's if it’s anything at all. And in that respect it doesn’t really matter what it is that they have. As long as they have something. As long as Frank Castle occupies any small space in her mind and her heart, as long as he takes up any of her time, this is going to be painful. It doesn’t matter if he intends it or not, if he contributes actively or passively, it will change them both. It will be difficult. It might be impossible. 

She doesn’t care. 

“You did it again Frank,” she whispers and there’s no edge in her voice, no accusation. “Disappeared.”

“I know,” he says. 

“Why now?” she asks and he shrugs. 

“Thought it would be okay. Thought it would be safe…”

There’s something about the way he says ‘“safe” that tells her he’s not talking about bad guys and cops on the hunt for his blood. 

“And is it?” she asks. “Is it safe?”

He shifts uncomfortably next to her, rolls his shoulder. She notes that he looks more than a little concerned as he stares down at her, scrutinises her in that way she probably wouldn’t allow anyone else to do. 

He swallows, meets her gaze.

“No,” voice thick, deep. “No it’s not.”

She nods, rests her head back against his shoulder. She gets it. 

“Don’t you know” means exactly what she knew it meant.

They sit in silence for a while and she listens to the sound of his heartbeat, slow and steady in his chest, the wind raking through her hair, and rustle of his coat as he absently rubs his hand up and down her arm. Somewhere she hears music start to play, a steady bass drum and the unmistakable sound of a 90s guitar solo. She thinks it must be the newlyweds on the top floor. The walls are paper thin in the building and she thinks they use it to muffle the sounds of them fucking. 

He asks if she’s okay and she nods. She is. 

“Thanks for all the coffee, by the way,” she says and he snorts. 

“Sure.”

“I’m winning on weekly expenses now. You know how much I save by getting a free latte every couple of days?”

“Probably as much as I spend buying double.”

She laughs and his hand slips to her waist, tugs her in closer, fingers pressing into her hip through the leather of his coat, the thin material of her dress. If she looked at him now he would kiss her. She knows this. It’s not even a question. But it brings up a lot of others. Scarier ones, bigger ones. Questions about where it would go and what it would do. If she’s ready to accept the consequences. 

She is, but she’s also not. And that leaves her nowhere.

Nowhere but here. In his arms and wishing he’d just make the decision for her. That’s he’d take her jaw in his hand and kiss her hard and fast, bite at her lips, taste her blood. Not for the first time she thinks that if he had just turned around that night in the cabin - if he’d just fucking turned around and seen her - if he taken her body on the table instead of taking her heart into his hands on the floor, things would have been different. It would have been easier. Hook ups and one night stands, bad decisions and even moments of pure blind irrationality are easier to explain, to put behind you, than what they did, what he told her. 

It’s too much and it hurts. And she doesn’t want it to hurt any worse than it already does but she knows there’s no way to make that happen. Like he said, it’s not safe. Not for him, but not for her either. So she stands and shrugs out of his coat, let’s the cold air touch her skin and instantly turn it to gooseflesh. 

Next to her he flinches, looks up at her worried and confused, grinding his teeth, biting down on the inside of his cheek. She wonders if he’ll always be like this. On edge. Ready for someone to hurt him, and even more ready to hurt back. He’s not well. He’s lost and lonely and thinks that is how he should be forever.

She can soothe it. She has already.

She reaches out, touches his cheek, the prickles of his stubble, and then takes his hands into her own, pulls him to his feet. In the distance, the bass keeps thudding and she moves into the wind, lets it whip at her legs, flare her skirt.

Sometimes the poison is also the cure.

“I didn’t get to dance Frank,” she says. “I left before it all started.”

He doesn’t get it at first. Stands there dark and brooding, head cocked, interested but also suspicious. And then he looks away, shy smile which she thinks was intended to be exasperated but isn’t, creeping onto his face.

“You’re fucking nuts,” he says, shaking his head. “You know that Karen? You are fucking nuts.”

“Come on Frank,” she walks a few steps backwards. “Only music I hear these days is Earth, Wind and Fire when I get into my car.”

“Don’t be hating on Earth, Wind and Fire,” he says, but he follows her and when he lifts her arm high into the cold air, she takes his lead and spins, stops caring about the cold and the wind and the flare of her dress. Doesn't care that if he magically missed the tops of her stockings, the slim lace garters, earlier on that there's no way he's missing them now.

Not like Frank Castle has never seen legs before.

But it doesn’t matter because he's laughing. Actual laughs. No snorting or eye rolling. And it’s cold and the roof is still wet and every step she gets to take without falling is both a gift and a miracle. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll catch her if she falls. When she gets to dizzy. Too giddy.

And then suddenly the sky explodes above them. Trails of red fire catapulting through the air, shattering into swirls and spirals, raining down to earth in cascades of flame. 

She stops spinning, grabs onto his shoulders and his hands dig into her waist as the the red light is replaced by blue, then green, orange. Plumes of coloured flame setting the night on fire. It's lurid in the worst possible way but it's also spectacular. Hell’s Kitchen, one of the seediest parts of New York, putting on her gaudiest gems, hiking up her skirts like a cathouse Madam well past her sell-by date, giving the world her final stand, the final middle finger. She’s brazen and brassy. She's hideous.

She’s beautiful.

“They did it,” she says softly.

“Assholes,” he mutters, but when she looks at him he’s staring at the sky. Fascinated as a series of multi-coloured peony shapes erupt above their heads, strings of crystal light and bursts of blue fire that look like fish tails raining down over the river. The smell of gunpowder in the air. 

She shivers and he absently pulls her closer, one hand rising to rest around her shoulders. 

“You're freezing,” he says. 

But she's really not. She's not cold at all. And she tells him so.

He runs his hand down the back of her arm to her elbow, scoffs at her, seems to completely miss the way she arches against his touch.

More bangs. Smaller ones now. White and pink like candy fizzing out quickly only to be replaced by golden Roman candles and a pale blue crossette.

“Come on, you're shaking,” he says.

And suddenly she's giddy again, whether from the spinning or from him she doesn't know. She finds it very hard to care. 

“I know.”

Watching realisation dawn on Frank Castle is a strange thing. It's not that he's stupid. It's not that he struggles with things like this although maybe he does more now since a bullet ripped through his brain and still left him breathing and standing on the other side. But he's like a child untying a gift from a particularly malicious uncle that he's already decided is going to be a pair of socks and actually finding that it's a model aeroplane or a trick bike. It's a look that goes from resignation to sudden elation and then almost immediately to suspicion. He gives himself seconds and then waits for the other shoe to drop.

It’s not safe. Not at all. But she wants to change that. Even if all it does is make things more dangerous.

It can't be a surprise to him though. He had to know. He had to know it would come to this. 

“Frank,” her voice is low and thick and she thinks she must sound ridiculous. “When I got out of the car that day…”

“Don't,” he warns.

But she has to. She knows she does and she ignores him.

“When I got out I wanted to tell you something and you didn't give me a chance and then you disappeared.”

He looks away, up at the sky. She wonders if he's hoping for another firework. Another copper chloride waterfall to distract her. A sound like gunfire to silence her.

He gets neither.

She touches a hand to his jaw and he closes his eyes, turns his face towards her palm. It's not a nuzzle but it's the hint of one. The bones of it.

“I told you the night you took Schoonover that I was done,” he flinches as she says it but she barrels on, throwing the words out in front of her before she loses them. “I'm not done Frank. I'm not.”

He’s still for a moment, his skin warm and rough against her palm. He sighs, something that sits halfway between satisfaction and resignation and his hand at her waist slips, thumb rubbing along the line of her hip, fingers pressing into her so that she’s sure he’ll leave marks on her skin. Little crescent moons of bruise and blood.

Another explosion, a sound like a bomb going off above them. This one a huge silver star that lights up the sky and vibrates through her skin, down her legs, into the ground. He opens his eyes to look and she thinks he’s buying time, trying to find words like she was, spit them out in some order that makes sense.

But she doesn’t care if it makes sense. She doesn’t. She’s spent so long missing him. So long just longing for him. Needing that connection that she can safely say she never felt with anyone else. Not Matt. Not Foggy. 

“Ma’am.”

It’s complicated. Yes. But it’s also like a switch. And it makes her dizzy all over again and she closes her eyes because she just can’t anymore. Because this is still not how it was meant to be. This was not how her life was supposed to go and whereas before she could have railed against it. She could have told herself that sometimes things just don’t work out and you end up with something you neither want nor need, she can’t do that now. 

Because this … this is better. 

And it scares her how little it scares her.

He kisses her palm, pulls her hand away from his face to rest on his heart and leans down to press his forehead to hers, slides both hands to her shoulders, thumbs sweeping across the ridges of her collarbones, her skin icy but somehow also not. His breath is warm on her face, tiny patches of heat that smell of blood and coffee flaring on her skin. And inside she’s screaming _Kiss me Frank. Kiss me now, because I can’t fucking stand another second of this_.

He makes a sound like nothing she has ever heard from him before, something deep and guttural and not entirely human. And the next thing she knows his hands have returned to her waist and he’s backed her into the wall, cold cement against her skin, his knee pressed between her legs. And she can feel him hard against her hip.

He’s breathing slow and deep like he’s trying to control it, like he’s trying to fight whatever he’s feeling back into submission, stop his body from betraying him. And she really wishes he wouldn’t. It’s not that she’s hugely experienced in the world of sex and love. It’s not like nothing is new or taboo to her. But there’s something in her that longs for him finally set free. That longs to find the kindness in his brutality. She thinks she’s already found part of it. In his mind, his heart. But maybe the rest is in his hands, his body, his strength. 

And she wants so much for him to show it to her.

He’s touching her though. Touching her with purpose, with meaning. Slow, deliberate strokes against her hips and belly, one hand dropping low on her back and the other spread over her ribs so that his thumb is millimetres away from her breast. She arches against him, tilts her head slightly to give him access to her neck, trying not to bear down too hard on his knee and failing miserably as he shifts it higher between her thighs.

And when his teeth scrape against her throat she gives up all pretense and hooks her fingers into his belt loops, tugging him closer so that she can feel all his hard and throbbing outlines against her. 

There’s a moment before it all falls apart that he lifts his head from her neck and their eyes meet. Maybe someone else would have called his expression fathomless or incongruous or whatever other word they’d like to use for unreadable, but it’s not. Rather it’s a mixture of things. Confusion, concern, understanding, fear and roiling beneath it all, desire. Arousal so strong she can almost taste it in the air. But he stares at her long and hard and she realises he’s asking permission, that he’s giving her the chance to refuse him. To say no. That on some level he’s even hoping for it.

Breathless.

She lifts her hands from his waist, slides them up his arms to his shoulders, his neck, fingernails snagging on his shirt and nothing but corded muscle and sinew underneath.

“Frank. Please.”

He blinks, swallows heavily. She wants to tell him that it’s okay, that he doesn’t need to be nervous, that it’s just her and he’s safe with her. Even if he doesn’t think he is. Even if he’s not. But her throat is tight and her tongue feels clumsy and thick in her mouth. He brings his hand to her face, combs his fingers into her hair, touches her cheek, thumb skimming her lips … and suddenly he's gone and the cold air rushes in fast and hard as he steps back so sharply that she almost pitches forward, only catching herself half against the wall and half on the stupid little too-narrow-for-sitting ledge. 

It dawns on her then that he could have dropped her. After everything. He could have and she has no idea how to feel about that.

When she looks up, he’s holding his hands out in front of him as if they’re not part of his body, as if he doesn’t recognise them or is only just coming to see them as his own. 

And he looks horrified. 

It takes her a second to realise why, to quiet that part of her brain that's still running hot and wired and focus on him and what he's doing. 

The blood on his hands. He didn't know. He had no idea.

She straightens. The wall, previously cold and rough at her back now feels solid, comforting. Stable. She takes a tiny slow step forward, says his name. Softly. Gently, like she would approach a stray dog she was unsure of, or a feral cat with a wounded leg. But he’s not slow. His head snaps up and he’s looking at her. Not like he did before. Not like she was the only thing worth looking at, not in his unique way which is both vulgar and also nothing of the sort. No, he’s looking for something and even though she knows he’s had his hands all over her, she hopes he doesn’t find it. 

He does. 

She sees it in his eyes. Sees the the little hope that existed there snuff out like a pinched candle.

She takes a breath, makes herself focus. Takes inventory. Shoes, stockings, dress. 

Dress.

A mark. A stain. Reddish brown on her hip, another on her wrist. Smeared and faint against the teal silk but obviously handprints. His hands. The ones he is looking at like they don’t belong to him or on his body.

And for a moment it all seems so silly. So ridiculously silly and she wants to haul him back in, put his hands back where they were, his knee back between her thighs. And she’ll tell him to stop worrying and do what it was he set out to do. That it’s only a dress. She’ll get it dry cleaned. 

But she knows it’s not about the dress. It’s not about the blood either.

It doesn’t matter. She’s saying it anyway. Hoping that it’ll be enough. But it isn’t.

He steps forward, lifts a hand and presses his thumb to her jaw, holding it there and she realises she has another mark on her face, some more smeared blood and he’s covering it now, making sure he knows where it came from. How it got there. That he put it there. His blood or someone else’s, she doesn’t think it matters in his head.

It’s not about blood.

It’s about him. It's about Maria. It's about everything this can and can't be. 

_Don’t you know?_

“Frank…” it sounds like she’s begging. She doesn’t care. “Frank, it’s okay.”

But it’s not. 

He touches her waist, performs the same ritual of covering the marks with his fingers. And even though this is the worst thing that could happen, it feels so good when he puts his hands on her. So good when he blocks out that cold air and leaves only his warmth.

And then his hand drops to his side and she closes her eyes. Waits for what she knows is coming.

He inhales. And it feels like he's sucking all the air out of the world.

“This can't … ma’am. It’s not...”

She’s not surprised. Not surprised he would come to her to feel better and then stab himself in the back the second he felt strong enough to do so. He’s the Punisher. It makes sense that he punishes himself most of all. But it still hits her stomach like a lead weight, pulls her down. Grief, disappointment. Fear. The truth is it all feels the same anyway.

But it also makes her angry. Angry that he disappears, angry that he doesn’t. Angry that he dragged her out here only to find more twisted and vicious ways to break her heart. As if he hasn’t done that enough already. As if he hasn’t delivered her this particular flavour of emotional whiplash before.

Maybe she should have been ready, but she wasn’t.

“This thing between us,” his voice is choked and thick and she can feel his breath against her skin, warm and damp. “We have to let it go.”

She opens her eyes. She decides she won't look away. She’ll leave that for him.

“Frank, I know you don’t want that,” she's impressed by the steel in her voice. How level and reasonable she sounds even to herself.

“Doesn’t matter what I want.”

Sure. Sure. She expected that. 

“And what about me, doesn’t that matter either?” Still calm. Still controlled. But inside she’s screaming at him that it’s only a little bit of blood. That she knew it was on his hands the second he touched her and she didn’t care and she still climbed out the window and still came to the roof and still danced with him under the stars. 

He sighs. Blinks. Frowns. Somewhere she realises that he knows he can't win this argument, but also that it's not about winning. These things seldom are.

“Ma’am, you should go. Go make a life for yourself,” he bites his lip again, seems to have to force the words out. “Red still loves you. Forget me and this.”

Later she’ll wonder if a slap to the face would have been easier. Not that he would have. Not that he wouldn't annihilate anyone who would raise his hands to her. But this. This is a level of cruelty she didn't expect. Of all the things he could have said. Of all the buttons he could have pressed he went for that. He doesn't fight fair. It's no surprise. Nothing that he's done or had done to him in the past two years has been fair. No reason this should be. 

Still though. _Still..._

She draws away from him and even now she can see that it hurts him. That a strike against her is a strike against himself too.

“Don't make decisions for me Frank. You respected me once enough not to do that. Nothing’s changed.”

“Really?” he laughs and suddenly it’s dry and mean. “Nothing’s changed?”

“Not that.” 

He’s quiet for a few seconds, standing there in front of her all nervous energy and fidgeting. Glancing at the sky, the ground, the beer bottles and the rubbish. He said he should have brought a picnic. He made a joke. It was all so perfect and then it wasn’t. Then it became this.

“I told you to stay away from me,” he says.

“You told me to hold on with both hands.”

He has no answer to that. She can see it in the way his shoulders slump, the way he looks at her. Still, like she’s the only thing in the whole world worth looking at. Still, like he wants nothing more than to stop doing what he’s doing and just bury himself in her and never let go. She wonders if this is just how he does this now. If he has to let whatever is inside him out through his rage.

She tried to take it from him once. Tried to make it easy. Tried to soothe so the moment didn’t hurt, so that the little monster that lives inside him didn’t need to force its way out and crack his ribs and wring his heart out as it went. She chose to make it easy. He’s choosing not to.

He bends down, picks up his coat.

“I’m sorry,” and there’s no artifice in it. It's not a platitude. He _is_ sorry. “I can't bring this to you too. It’s not safe.”

A step backwards. Another long meaningful look. He look like he might say something and then he bites his lip so hard that she’s sure it must bleed. He turns away from her and when he speaks his voice is rough and choked, smallest hint of rage, something else that sounds like fear. 

“You forget about me. I won't take up any more of your time.”

It’s the first time he’s ever lied to her and every word hits her in the gut like a bullet. 

He walks to the fire escape, pauses when his hand touches the railing, but he doesn’t look back and then he’s gone. By the time she gets there, cold and shivering and cursing herself for crying, because she always damn well cries and she can’t fucking help it no matter how hard she tries to stifle the tears, there’s no sign of him. Like he threw himself off the building and disappeared into the night. Like he did her job for her or was never really there at all.

She covers her mouth, stifles a sob and wraps an arm around her belly. In the distance a final firework explodes, cascades down in a waterfall the colour of blood. She turns away. He was right. 

There was nothing on the roof.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7649266/chapters/17415235)


End file.
